News

Land of the Lustrous, Ascendance of a Bookworm, Kia Asamiya Win Seiun Awards

The Japan Science Fiction Convention revealed the winners of the 56th Seiun Awards on Thursday. Haruko Ichikawa's Land of the Lustrous manga (pictured right) won the Best Comic award. Miya Kazuki's Ascendance of a Bookworm (Honzuki no Gekokujō - Shisho ni Naru Tame niwa Shudan o Erandeiramasen) "biblia fantasy" light novel series won the Best Japanese Long Story award. Manga creator Kia Asamiya won the Best Artist award.

Other award winners this year include:

• Best Japanese Short Story: Yuri Matsuzaki's "Yamanote-sen ga Tensei-shite Kasokuki ni Narimashita." (The Yamanote Line Has Been Reincarnated Into a Particle Accelerator."
• Best Translated Long Story: Martha Wells' System Collapse translated by Naoya Nakahara
• Best Translated Short Story: Yukimi Ogawa's "The Portrait of a Survivor, Observed from the Water" translated by Umiyuri Katsuyama
• Best Media: A Samurai In Time film directed by Junichi Yasuda
• Best Non-Fiction: Yasuo Nagayama's History of Girls SF Manga with a Focus on Showa Golden Age
• Non Category: Smart Lander for Investigating Moon (SLIM) achieved the world's first high-precision landing on the Moon

Ichikawa launched Land of the Lustrous in Kodansha's Afternoon magazine in 2012. Kodansha published the 13th compiled book volume in November 2024. The manga ended in April 2024.

Kodansha USA Publishing is releasing the manga in English.

The 12-episode anime adaptation of the manga premiered in October 2017. HIDIVE streamed the series outside of the United States and Canada as it aired, and added the anime for the United States and Canada starting in June 2018. Amazon's now-defunct Anime Strike service streamed the series in the United States and Canada as it aired. Sentai Filmworks released the anime in a steelbook complete collection in January 2019.

The manga won the grand prize in the Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers of Japan's (SFWJ) 45th Nihon SF Taishō Awards in February.

Kazuki began the original Ascendance of a Bookworm novels on the "Shōsetsuka ni Narō" website in 2013, and ended the web novel in 2017. You Shiina illustrated the print edition. The main series ended with its 33rd volume (volume 12 of part 5) in December 2023. The novel series has over 12 million copies in circulation (including digital copies).

J-Novel Club is releasing both the light novels and the various manga adaptations in English. Suzuka drew the art for the manga adaptations of Part 1 and 2, and Ryō Namino is drawing the adaptation of Part 3. Hikaru Katsuki is drawing the adaptation of Part 4. J-Novel Club is releasing the manga adaptations of Parts 1-4.

The light novels inspired a television anime adaptation with three seasons by Ajia-do. The first anime season premiered in October 2019, and ended in December 2019 with 14 episodes. The second season premiered in Japan in April 2020. The anime's third season premiered in April 2022. Crunchyroll streamed the third season as it aired, and started streaming an English dub in May 2022.

Ascendance of a Bookworm: Adopted Daughter of an Archduke, the new television anime that will adapt the third part of the original novel series, will premiere in spring 2026.

Asamiya created the Silent Mobius, Steam Detectives, Compiler, and Junk: Record of the Last Hero manga, among others. He provided character designs for the Martian Successor Nadesico anime (which he later adapted into the Nadesico manga), adapted the Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace film into a manga, and wrote and drew the Batman: The Child of Dreams comic. Many of his manga have been adapted into anime.

This is the second year in a row that Asamiya has won the Best Artist award.

The 56th Seiun Award ceremony will be held on August 3 at the 63rd Japanese Science Fiction Convention (Nihon SF Taikai) in Tokyo.

The nominees were chosen among works that were released between January 1 and December 31, 2024. Those who registered for the 63rd Japan Science Fiction Convention could vote online for the winners between May 11-June 30.

"Seiun Shō" literally translates to "nebula awards," but the Japan SF Con's Seiun Awards are more akin to the Hugo Awards, in that the attendees of each respective convention vote on the winners. There is another set of awards, the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of Japan's Nihon SF Taishō honors, that are the rough Japanese equivalent of the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America's Nebula Awards. Like the Hugo Awards, the Seiun Awards honor all forms of speculative fiction — including but not limited to science fiction — and related materials.

Last year, Ryōko Kui's Delicious in Dungeon (Dungeon Meshi) manga won the Best Comic award. TOHO's Godzilla Minus One film won the Best Media award. Asamiya won the Best Artist award last year as well.

Previous winners of the Seiun Awards include Chi: On the Movements of the Earth, Shin Ultraman, Kemono Friends, And Yet the Town Moves, Shin Godzilla, Kochikame, Girls und Panzer, Knights of Sidonia, The World of Narue, Bodacious Space Pirates, Range Murata, Masamune Shirow, Makoto Shinkai, Fullmetal Alchemist, Gundam: The Origin, 20th Century Boys, Summer Wars, Cardcaptor Sakura, Madoka Magica, Pacific Rim, Space Battleship Yamato 2199, Moyashimon, Astra Lost in Space, How Many Light-Years to Babylon?, Batman Ninja, Studio Nue co-founder Naoyuki Katō, and more.

Sources: Japan Science Fiction Convention, Comic Natalie

---

Disclosure: Kadokawa World Entertainment (KWE), a wholly owned subsidiary of Kadokawa Corporation, is the majority owner of Anime News Network, LLC. Yen Press, BookWalker Global, and J-Novel Club are subsidiaries of KWE.